Traditional juicers are instruments or tools that were designed to extract juice of citrus fruits, such as oranges, lemons, grapefruit, etc. The traditional way is carried out by simple steps that include cutting the fruit and then pressing the halves of it by hand on very simple manual juicers (plastic material, glass, metal, etc.), such as the known ones “fruit citrus juicers”, as well as the use of more complex electric juicers to perform the operation by squeezing the fruit in a more or less automatic way.
This type of juicers is usually used in homes or for semi-commercial use in small juice businesses.
However, because the consumption of citrus fruits has been increasing every day, for example, for sale in shopping centers, restaurants and many bars and hotels to produce juice (fresh juice), automatic or semi-automatic machines began to be manufactured, which have a channel where citrus are placed and progressively progressing to a section of cut and squeezed according to customer orders.
Currently, there is a wide variety of citrus juicers. There are large ones such as the one developed by the company “FMC Technologies” protected by several U.S. patents, such as the U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,426,107B1; 6,568,319B2; 6,912,951 B2; 6,923,112B2, 7,421,945B2; 7,487,721B2, among others.
The operating principle of the FMC juicer is based on feeding the fruit to the juicer through a belt conveyor and is automatically positioned on a lower cup. A stainless steel blade located at the top, cuts a circle of bark on top of the citrus to allow separation of the crust from the interior portions of the fruit. In the lower part, another blade cuts a portion of bark to allow access of a cylinder to sift into the interior of the fruit. An upper cup moves down causing a pressure on the citrus so that the upper and lower blades begin to cut the upper and lower ends of the fruit. The design of the cups allows the fruit is perfectly subject, preventing breakage, and get a uniform extraction throughout the process. A pre-shaping cylinder separates the internal elements of the fruit according to their size: the juice and the pulp will pass through the holes of the pre-shaping cylinder and will be deposited in a juice reservoir, while the membranes and seeds will be discharged by a lower tube.
Once the extraction is finished, the interior portions of the citrus that are located inside the sifting cylinder and a tube moves upward, pressing the contents of the sifting cylinder, which causes the juice and pulp to pass through the sieve holes and into the juice collecting tank.
Another type of citrus fruit juicing machine is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,493,851 assigned to the company Zumex. Said squeezing machine is of a small size, of the type that uses sets of rotating male-female drums characterized by having one sole female drum and one sole male drum with an automatically positioning blade and a retaining pendulum-turning device. These characteristics avoid having to incorporate a second set of drums into the machine since the remaining half fruit is turned after the cut into the following upper cavity of the female drum. Its principle of operation is quite simple and is based on splitting the fruit in half and passing the halves between two rotating cylinders that press the fruit and extract the juice. The male and female drums with a perfect synchronization, extract the juice from the pulp of the fruit, which has previously been cut in two halves by means of the blade located in the upper compartment of the machine.
Both extractors present a very good efficiency for the ranges of recommended fruit sizes. However, losses in the yields of juice and essential oil can occur due to the breakage of the fruits when the pieces that are fed to a certain cup are too large or small. This problem is reduced by the selection by calibrating the size of the fruit suitable before extraction.
Another disadvantage is that the machines are large and occupy a larger storage space, as well as the high cost of the same,
A further disadvantage of large juice extractors is that, due to the large number of pieces, it requires a greater cleaning to keep it in a healthy and hygienic condition.
Another type of machine for extracting juices is described in the U.S. Pat. No. 8,261,659 assigned to Carlos Mendes Neto, which generally refers to a fruit juice extraction device comprising two pairs of opposing peeler cups, for peeling fruits, which compress the fruit to obtain the juice, and particularly to features of the paired peeler cups that are effective at relatively higher production rates and/or with relatively smaller fruit.
As described above, most machines for the zumo or juice extraction are operated in an automatic or semi-automatic way, where the fruit is crushed or cut causing in some cases that the juice has a bitter taste, which is not pleasant for the consumer.
Therefore, the present invention relates to a citrus fruit juicer apparatus of the type comprising: a hollow housing having an open upper section and a lower exit section, said hollow housing including at least one opening or window for each one of its sides. A squeezer device coupled to the internal part of said hollow housing, the squeezer device having at least two trapezoidal sunken sections, each sunken section having an open top and a front section, the trapezoidal sunken sections being placed in an opposite relation to one another in the central part of the squeezing device, the front part of each trapezoidal sunken section being coincident with each opening of the hollow housing; the sunken trapezoidal sections including a plurality of slots to allow the passage of the citrus juice to be squeezed. At least one cutting blade placed transversely in the open upper section of the hollow housing, the blades being coupled above the squeezing device for reception and cutting of the citrus fruits. And, a pressing mechanism, which is placed, separately, above the hollow housing, said pressing mechanism including at least two pressing ladles which are located in an axial alignment with respect to each of the trapezoidal sunken sections of the squeezer device, the pressing mechanism being operable with a forward or backward movement so that once a citrus has been placed on the blades, the mechanism has a forward movement and the pressing ladles press the citrus on the cutting blades for cutting the citrus in parts and continue to enter each of the trapezoidal sunken sections of the squeezing device, said pressing ladles, during the forward movement press the cut sections of the citrus against the trapezoidal sunken sections, passing the citrus juice squeezed through the plurality of slots of the squeezed device and eject it to the lower section of the hollow housing; and, during its backward movement, separate the pressing mechanism and ladles from the hollow housing to allow the feeding of another citrus on the blades in the upper part of the hollow housing.